Karman cracks top-200, sets new target of 150 by year-end

Karman Kaur Thandi today became only the sixth Indian woman tennis player to crack the top-200 rankings in singles, jumping 32 places in the WTA chart.

Karman is now ranked exactly 200 in the WTA list.

The 20-year-old Delhi girl, backed by Mahesh Bhupathi, has been in good form in the past few weeks, winning her maiden ITF singles title in Hong Kong and making the semi-finals in two others in China.

In April, the country's top singles player Ankita Raina had broken into the top-200 and is now ranked 195 (-4).

Before these two girls, Sania Mirza, Nirupama Vaidyanathan, Shikha Uberoi and Sunitha Rao had made it to the top-200.

While Sania, winner of six Grand Slam titles in doubles, touched a career-high of 27 in singles in 2007, Nirupama's best rank was 134 in 1997.

Shikha's highest ranking was 122 and Sunita reached 144. Both these players were US citizens even though they represented India on tour.

"I am happy to climb to top-200. Step by step, I will try to reach my goal of getting into top-150 by the year-end," Karman, who celebrated the moment by indulging in some shopping, told PTI.

In her last three tournaments, Karman won her maiden ITF singles title in Hong Kong and reached semi-final in two others in China.

Asked if she played differently to get consistency, Karman said:"The matches I played before were tight ones and they could have gone either way. I lost those matches but learnt from them."
"In the matches, I played recently, I kept my intensity on every point and stepping it up both mentally and and game wise. I stayed solid with my game both physically and mentally."
Commenting on the development, Bhupathi told PTI,"It is a stepping stone. She works very hard and it's good to see her moving in the right direction."